The challenges of cloud computing in the healthcare industry
Despite all its advantages, which we’ve counted in the previous article, there are several problems in the healthcare industry that cloud computing faces.
1. Security risks
As being one of the top industries which are suffering from security breaches, healthcare accounts for 15% of all attacks and it’s no surprise that security is the number one challenge in cloud computing by reason of the sensitivity of patients’ data, and so, in that case, it must be uninterruptibly protected. Hence, when choosing, double-check that a cloud computing service provider can treat security dutifully.
However, there are far more ways to make sure the information in the cloud remains under the protection of the service provider. The core ones are security keys, data encryption, and the use of blockchain.
2. Possibilities of downtime
Cloud-based systems are prone to occasional downtime or slow performance, just like any other similar service and when all the contingencies are carefully planned, healthcare installations are prepared for this challenge aforehand and its effects are highly reduced.
3. Data compliance to the law
Data regulation laws such as GDPR or HIPAA are also applied to healthcare, just as to all industries. Therefore, assure that all data in the cloud complies with all necessary regulations before moving it here.
Top 3 cloud computing providers
The $130 billion cloud market is exploding at the moment. With three major players being responsible for its largest share, and to be consistent with the latest reports, they mutually grip 32%, 20%, and 9% of the entire cloud market. Let’s check them out.
- Amazon Web Services
AWS comes with various tools and services which can cover practically all cloud computing needs. It offers miraculous computing capability with its main component — Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2). EC2 supports Windows and Linux operating systems and comes with load balancing and auto-scaling built-in tools.
- Microsoft Azure
Azure is owned by Microsoft which means it works flawlessly with Microsoft’s other enterprise-grade services like Office365 or Microsoft Active Directory. In addition to storage and computing power services, Azure has tools for implementing AI and ML algorithms.
Azure computing services are known for their high security standards, stable connection, and good latency. It offers exquisite flexibility with private, public, and hybrid cloud deployments.
- Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform, or GCP, makes a big emphasis on data protection and privacy, Big Data analytics using AI and ML, and user-friendly pricing. It supports systems like Windows, Linux, custom virtual machines and provides unified storage which solves problems with storing any type of object or data.
Additional security of GCP comes from full-scale encoding that Google applies for data that is in transit or at rest.
